Kate Forsyth is becoming one of my new favourite authors.
As much as I love fairy tales, and researching the origins of fantasy and how much impact it has on our lives, I freely and embarrassingly admit that I knew little about the Grimm Brothers themselves before I picked up this book. Now I am happy to have been enlightened - enlightened by yet another edition of Ms Forsyth's historical romance fiction.
By the way, did I happen to read this around Valentine's Day? I barely noticed.
'The Wild Girl' is a story about love in its deepest, darkest depths and complications. Sometimes love is the most magical thing in the whole world - a lot of stories attribute love as being the most powerful magic there is - but sometimes it can lead to pain and tragedy. And abuse.
Abuse is a key theme in this novel - the abuse of power disguised as love and good intent.
Set in Germany, Cassel, in the early 1800s, 'The Wild Girl' is a love and abuse tale; further heightened by the European invasion and war of Napoleon, which is used as a backdrop for the book's mature themes.
Dortchen Wild - the second youngest of seven children born to an apothecary - fell in love with Wilhelm Grimm from the moment she saw him. She was twelve-years-old, and he nineteen. They were neighbours, and Wilhelm's sister, Lotte, was Dortchen's best friend. The Grimm family had struggled through poverty ever since the death of their father, and as the years went by, times fell harder and more anguishing for both families.
But Dortchen's feelings for Wilhelm never changed. As they got closer, she helped him with his fairy tale collection by telling him the most known (and, profoundly, unknown) tales we love and cherish today.
The Brothers Grimm left one tale untold. About the girl with the big heart and responsibilities, and with a fervour for stories. She lived right next door to the brothers. This girl eventually became a huge contribution to the Grimm's fairy tales, and to Wilhelm Grimm's life.
She was a Wild girl. But possibly a victim of abuse.
In Kate Forsyth's version of this story, Dortchen Wild starts off as a free-spirited and charming young girl. However, with the cruel changing of the times, the French invasion, and her elder sisters getting married off, her heart slowly turns to ice to match the long insufferable winters. But above all, it is her father's obsession with keeping her under control and forcing her to be the traditionally quiet and obedient daughter that eventually breaks her. Even after his death, when she grows to adulthood, she still cannot be free of him. Dortchen is traumatised by her father's abuse, and she has hardened into someone who refuses to believe in the power of fairy tales and happy endings. Tragically, this also affects her relationship with the impoverished Wilhelm. She works non-stop day and night, and distances herself from others; and tries not to think of children's stories even when she looks after the little ones in their innocence. This lady has become the quiet and obedient wretch her ghastly father wanted her to be, and is the shadow of the little girl she once was.
But can love really work magic? Can her wild fire be rekindled? Can victims of abuse ever truly be free of their pasts, and know that whatever terrible crime that's been committed against them was not their fault?
'The Wild Girl' connects the theme of abuse in real life to how it is reflected in fairy tales. This concept is fascinating to me. After all, 'Cinderella' is treated like a slave by her stepmother and sisters; 'Hansel and Gretel' start off their adventure when they are abandoned by their parents; 'Rapunzel' has another abusive and controlling mother figure, as does 'Snow White'; and 'Beauty and the Beast' and 'Sleeping Beauty' both have an undertone of women giving up their lives and bodies for men, no matter how they are treated (this is, at least, an implication in the original tales). In these stories, and in post-mid 1900s, women are property. Property to be handled in any way, even in opposition to the most basic of human rights.
Ms Forsyth, in her book, implies that perhaps the reason why Dortchen Wild told her tales to the Brothers Grimm the way she did was because she herself may have been abused. This is made especially potent when she told the earlier version of the obscure story, 'All-Kinds-of-Fur', where it is the princess's FATHER who wants to marry her, and succeeds in doing so in the end. But all is not tragedy. For in the Grimm's revised versions of their collected fairy tales, the concept of happily ever after is revitalised. So is the case of the story of the Wild girl, where true love conquers all. But because that is set in real life, happily ever after takes longer to happen - and is worth every year of agony to achieve it.
Aside from its clever themes and lovely writing, 'The Wild Girl' has a whole set of memorable characters and moments of sweetness, sorrow and genuine shocks that are impossible to turn away from as they happen on the pages. I don't think this should be categorised as YA - it is very graphic in its depictions of violence, gore, and abuse in all its horrific connotations.
The novel does contain its weaknesses, however. It is rather long-winded at nearly 500 pages, and not all the characters are fully developed - in fact a few disappear from the story altogether and are not mentioned again. Given that this is historical fiction, this is understandable, since it is a realistic presentation of how people come and go in our lives and may or may not have had much impact on us as we grow into our own individual selves. Some phrases, such as "She/He turned away from him/her" and "She/He did not answer" and "She hid her face" and "Her eyes filled with tears" or variations of those, are a little overused. Not to mention they're what you'd expect from a cliched romance book, rather than an original one meant to be taken seriously. And while I did sympathise with Dortchen wholeheartedly, I still found some of her decisions - by the way the author tells them - a bit strange and out of character. Such as, when an unhappy and self-pitying adult, she would still do the things she happily would have done as a child. One example I can give of Dortchen's flakiness without revealing spoilers is her "compassion" for Napoleon after his imprisonment and death. Napoleon - a man who invaded most countries in Europe, including her own; who committed acts of genocide; was responsible for her family's poverty, and for her brother Rudolph being sent to the army and thus causing his post-traumatic stress disorder. Napoleon may have arguably made Europe better in some aspects, but in others not so, clearly.
However, even though 'The Wild Girl' didn't have as much of an impact on me as 'Bitter Greens' did, it is still an amazing novel. Highly recommended to anyone who loves fairy tales and understands (or wants to understand) why they are important for us to preserve and dissect. It doesn't say exactly where these tales came from, because they are in fact so old their origins are scattered. They are romantic, like Dortchen and Wilhelm and their complicated story of love and overcoming obstacles - both physical and personal - so that they can be together.
Love, magic and stories are elements as old as time itself - they are as relevant now as they ever were. They help us to understand ourselves as much as any other form of psychology. They are what make us human: good or bad humans, the choices we make and the actions we take are our own, or should be our own. Perhaps these childlike elements do help to shape us into the adults we have or will become, as shown in 'The Wild Girl' and how it tells of Dortchen Wild's story - one that may indeed have influenced our most beloved bedtime fables.
Final Score: 4/5
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